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Eye test


I hate eyes, looking at other people’s eyes, talking about eyes, basically anything to do with eyes.  As much as I really didn’t want to get my eyes tested I also didn’t fancy going blind so I put my big girl pants on and got on with it. 

I had to go down to eye casualty and was dreading seeing people with manky eyes or with things sticking out of their eyes but to my relief everyone sat in the waiting room appeared to have normal looking eyes. Despite having an appointment I still had to wait for an hour and a half before I was seen by a nurse. She asked me some questions and did the ‘read out the smallest line you can see’ test. 


She also needed to measure the pressure in my eyes and came at me armed with a handheld machine. I kept moving my head and blinking so it took her more attempts than she had anticipated. But the worse was yet to come- the eye drops. Every time she came near my eyes with the eye drop bottle my eyes accidentally closed or my head accidentally moved. I also happened to be sat on a chair with wheels which made dodging the eye drops just that little bit easier. Eventually though I had backed away so many times I hit the wall and the nurse decided she needed to hold my eyes open in order to get the drops in. It was like torture! And nobody told me that the eye drops would sting! I know I sound like a baby but eyes really are the only thing that make me squeamish. 

The eye drops were to dilate my pupils so the optician could see if there were any signs that the infection had spread to my eyes. After about 30 minutes I was called in to see the doctor who shined a very bright light into my eyes, got me looking this way and that and then declared that my eyes were fine. Phew, such a relief to know I’m not going blind! She did slightly dampen the mood though by saying that the infection could still attack the eyes so I need to be vigilant about any soreness or changes to my vision and let the ward team know straight away if this happens. But for now I will take this small win, because I haven’t had many of them in the last few months.



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